Tuna Patties

Food Network has to be the best thing on cable. It’s a great and lucrative idea. Food all day, everyday? BRILLIANT! I was watching it by Dawi’s grandmother when I saw Paula making some Salmon Burgers. Dawi commented that it probably would be good to do something like that with tuna… a suggestion that was tasting right in my books. So I decided to try a tuna patty.



Whipped out some tuna. 2 tins of chunks in water and 2 tins of chunks in oil. Drained of course. Bumble Bee or Brunswick… don't really care that much. They're not paying for this big up anyway.



I put it in a bowl and just spread it around a little.




Enter lime. Makes it nice and tangy.




Then I cut up some shaddon beni, celery, onion, pimento and chive.





Mixed that up with the tuna.




In mixtures like these, one would usually use a bread crumb-esk ingredient. I tried these cheddar flavoured toasted Ritz Chips. I just put them in a sandwich bag and crushed them up a bit.




Then I took my premium quality rolling pin to them for that absolute crush.





The end result was not absolutely fine, but absolute enough to do the trick.




I usually wouldn’t use egg to bind, but I decided to take a chance this time.





Then I put some of my flavourful buddies into the egg, hoping that they would be transported all around the mixture.




The mixture ended up looking like this. Time to get to cooking.




But first, I had to heat up some oil in my trusty frying pan turned pizza dish.




As soon as the oil was hot, I scooped out manageable portions and put them in.




Well, the patties came out nice, with a light crust on the outside. I could tell they would make an interesting sandwich.




The Curious Mouth had hers with 8 grain whole wheat bread. But I preferred to have mine with marble rye.




Slice of tomato, lettuce, mayo, ketchup, mustard, pepper sauce. Some potato chips at the side and we on!




Good call Dawi. I’ll have to line you up with some.


Leh we bubble!

PIZZAT LEFTOVERS PART 1: Pizzat Treats

after a pizzat lime, there's one thing you're sure to end up with. leftover ingredients. so what do you do? cook some more! but what's the fun in doing the same thing again? so this time i tried a lil pie like vehicle we ended up callin a pizzat treat.


i started by cutting up the balance of the chicken salami.



then i cut up some pimento, onions and carrots.



fired up a burner and got the onions and pimentos going in some oil.


next, carrots joined the saute.


followed by the chicken salami.

when it got a decent cooking, it was time to add that left over pizzat sauce. i figured that since the toppings were now fillings, it might be wise to put sauce and ingredients into one.



so i took dawi's trusty pizza dough and spread it out before spooning on a very generous portion of the filling.



now notice the size of this thing right here. yeah... i got a bit carried away.



dropped some cheese on that baby. guess what???



as soon as i folded it over, the filling burst out the back and the sides and it was all over the place. i just picked it up and dropped it into a pan and baked it like that anyway. it came out like this. tasted good, but looked like a mess!!



anyway, good sense prevailed, and i scaled it down considerably. workable sizes.




folded and pressed the edges in.



the first attempt came out ok.



the curious mouth dug in and gave it the stamp of approval, which to me meant:
start the next round!




so i loaded up that trusty frying-pan-turned-baking-tray-substitute and got some more going.



they turned out pretty ok.
i'll try them again sometime with a more flavourful meat like ground beef or some sort of tangy chicken perhaps. and i'll make some holes in the top with a fork to see what happens too.



leh we bubble.

PIZZAT!

one week ended on a low note, which wasn’t so bad. but then certain situations ran over into the following week, promising another low ending. luckily, the always-lime-encouraging-and-ready-to-bubble-a-pot baidawi suggested a little pizzat to lift the spirits. pizzat=pizza by the way… long story. so we caught the grocery right before it closed to get some ingredients to make the goodies.

in a pot we put a little oil, onions, garlic and pizza seasoning.

after it sautéed a little, in went some pineapple juice.

that bubbled for a while.

meanwhile, the pineapples themselves went on pause for later on.

back to the sauce. tomato paste joins the mix.

here’s another ingredient that you’re going to see a lot of through the process… garlic powder.

after adding some ketchup and a little water, in went the garlic powder. that’s about it for sauce.

time for the dough. flour obviously.

there’s that garlic powder again.

a little pizza seasoning… again.

some yeast.

baking powder is a must. after this is the kneading process which really is interesting only once, so i didn’t document it in this entry.

now toppings are usually simple. just get something and throw it on there. in this instance, we grated some cheese, opened a can of corn, cut up the pineapple from before and the curious mouth applied her pastelle preparation experience to the cutting of some olives.

the chicken salami begged for some ceremony though. that went into a small pot with a little oil, onion and some pimento peppers.

garlic powder (no surprise there), paprika and the good ole all purpose seasoning.

did you expect A1 sauce here? did you?

cooked that up a little and let it make a little sauce of its own.

by this time, the dough had time to set, so dawi used this unique, designer, special edition rolling pin to press the dough into a suitable format.

the baking utensils were greased with a little butter, before he put the dough in and spread the sauce on it.

next, the grated cheese followed closely by the pineapple.

chicken salami…

olives…

corn…

oven. preheated it at about 300. now notice the frying pan on the lower shelf. any port in a storm. storm meaning lack of a baking sheet. port meaning a shallow frying pan with an unbelievably resilient plastic handle.

this was round one which included this pizzat with chicken salami, pine, olives and corn…

as well as this round frying pan pizza with pine and olives.

it was enough to hold professionals like warren and renaldo at bay, while taking the mind off of the pressure of the week.

so send word of the toppings you usually use… or better yet, the toppings you’re going to use to make your own sometime soon.

leh we bubble.